A team of Dutch archaeologists has come to the village of Dzhulyunitsa in central northern Bulgaria in order to research the oldest funeral site in the Balkans.

The site, discovered by Nedko Elenski, an archaeologist from the Regional History Museum of Veliko Tarnovo in 2004, is a funeral of a person of the age between 12 and 13, which dates to 6300 – 6150 BC.

The Neolithic settlement near the modern-day village of Dzhulyunitsa existed between 6300 and 5700 BC. The settlement flourished around 6000 BC but, 300 years later, life there ceased to exist due to reasons that are still unknown to archaeologists.

During his excavations of the site, Elenski also discovered two other graves, dating to 4000 BC.

The Dutch archaeologists, according to national media reports, will take samples from the bones of the buried child and use the DNA analysis in order to learn more about the people who lived in this part of Bulgaria some 8000 years ago.